Table of Contents
- Key Terms
- How Do You Schedule an Email to Send Later in Gmail?
- What Are the Best Tools to Schedule Emails in Gmail?
- Why Would You Want to Schedule an Email to Send Later?
- How Can Scheduled Emails Help Your Professional Image?
- How Can You Analyze and Improve Your Email Habits?
- Frequently Asked Questions About Scheduling Emails in Gmail
- Can you schedule emails in Gmail for free?
- Where do scheduled emails go in Gmail?
- Can you cancel or edit a scheduled email in Gmail?
- How far in advance can you schedule an email in Gmail?
- Does Gmail support scheduling recurring emails?
- Will scheduled emails send if my computer is off?
- What is the best time to schedule emails for sales?
- Can you undo a scheduled email after it sends?
- Why use third-party tools instead of Gmail’s native scheduling?
- Can recipients tell if an email was scheduled?
- Related posts:
- How to Create Folders in Gmail
- 10 Hacks to Make Gmail for Business 10 Times Better
- 101 Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts and Hotkeys Every Gmail User Needs to Know
Key Terms
Scheduled Email: An email composed in advance and set to automatically send at a specific future date and time chosen by the sender.
Gmail Schedule Send: Gmail’s native feature (launched April 2019) that allows users to schedule emails to send later without third-party tools.
Undo Send: Gmail’s feature allowing users to recall an email for up to 30 seconds after sending, preventing delivery to the recipient.
Email Automation: Tools and features that automatically perform email tasks like sending, following up, or organizing without manual intervention.
Boomerang: A popular third-party Gmail add-on that provides email scheduling, reminders, and read receipts beyond Gmail’s native capabilities.
To schedule an email in Gmail: compose your email, click the drop-down arrow on the Send button, select “Schedule send,” then choose your preferred date and time. Gmail has supported native email scheduling since April 2019.
Instead of clicking the “send” button and having your message delivered instantly, you can choose exactly when your recipient should receive the message. Yes, you can schedule email in Gmail—read on to learn how.
How Do You Schedule an Email to Send Later in Gmail?
In Gmail desktop: compose your email, click the drop-down arrow on the Send button, select “Schedule send,” then choose a date and time. On mobile, tap the three-dots icon instead.
In April 2019, Gmail rolled out an email scheduling feature detailed in this blog post. It makes scheduling emails to send later in Gmail dead simple.
On desktop Gmail:
1. Compose your email as normal
2. Click the drop-down arrow on the “Send” button
3. Select “Schedule send”
4. Choose a suggested time or enter a custom date and time
You’ll see a confirmation pop-up indicating that the message is scheduled to be sent.
On the mobile app:
1. Compose your email
2. Instead of tapping the Send icon, tap the three-dots icon to the right of it
3. Tap “Schedule Send”
4. Select your preferred date and time from the pop-up
You can edit the scheduled send time and date on both desktop and mobile. You can also un-send an email that’s been sent using the scheduler, but only for a maximum of 30 seconds after it’s sent. See our guide on how to unsend an email in Gmail for a complete walkthrough.
What Are the Best Tools to Schedule Emails in Gmail?
Top third-party tools include Boomerang (scheduling plus reminders), Right Inbox (scheduling plus CRM integration), Gmelius (scheduling plus email tracking), and SndLatr (simple scheduling add-on).
A number of third-party apps also offer email scheduling functionality. Google encourages developers to create tools that make Gmail even better—I covered 61 of our favorite Gmail tools in this post.
Boomerang — Boomerang offers a suite of features designed to automate basic Gmail functions. You can send emails at specific dates and times, set automatic reminders for yourself, and delay incoming emails to take more control over when you read messages.
Right Inbox — Right Inbox improves email productivity with features like scheduling emails, creating reminders, and managing task lists within the platform. It also includes signature switching, templated messages, email sequences, and CRM sync capabilities.
Gmelius — Gmelius is designed for salespeople but can be used by almost anyone. You can track which emails have been read, which links have been clicked, and schedule emails to send at specific times and dates.
SndLatr — SndLatr is an aptly named Chrome add-on by Top Inbox that allows you to send emails later at the time and date of your choosing. You can also create automatic reminders and see which emails are opened.
Why Would You Want to Schedule an Email to Send Later?
Schedule emails to catch recipients at optimal times, spread out responses to avoid overwhelming people, imply different working hours, or buy yourself time to gather information before following up.
One productive advantage of email is sending and receiving messages instantaneously. However, there are scenarios where scheduling an email is advantageous:
Catching attention at the right time. This is ideal for email-focused salespeople. Your target demographics are probably more likely to read and open an email on a certain day or time—like 10:30 am Wednesday morning. That timeslot may not be convenient for you to draft a new email, so scheduling in advance helps you hit that ideal timeslot no matter what.
How Can Scheduled Emails Help Your Professional Image?
Scheduled emails let you appear to work different hours (like an early riser), avoid overwhelming recipients with batched responses, and give yourself time to cool off before sending emotional messages.
Implying alternate working hours. Though ethically questionable in some cases, you could use email scheduling to imply you’re working different hours than you really are. For example, you might schedule an email to send at 7 am if you want to seem like an early riser.
Spreading out responses. Nobody likes to be bombarded with email, but there are times when you’ll only have a fixed amount of time to send messages. The ordinary outcome might be sending all your messages within half an hour, overwhelming recipients and resulting in a cascade of responses. Scheduling allows you to spread those responses out, reducing the burden for both you and your recipients.
Buying yourself time. If you’re in a tight spot with a client, scheduling an email can buy you time. For example, if a client brings up a concern about an upcoming deadline, you could schedule an email for an hour in the future saying you’re “looking into it.” During that hour, you can uncover as much information as possible and follow up with a much more informed response. You can also use this technique when writing emails in a heightened emotional state, so you can cool off and readdress what you’ve written later.
How Can You Analyze and Improve Your Email Habits?
EmailAnalytics measures your incoming and outgoing emails, drafting habits, response times, and busiest periods. Use these insights to optimize when you send and how you manage your inbox.
If you’re looking to take your Gmail game to the next level, consider integrating EmailAnalytics. It’s an analytics tool that measures your incoming and outgoing emails, your email drafting habits, and even your busiest days and times.
Sign up for a free trial today and start learning how you can improve your approach to email.
Frequently Asked Questions About Scheduling Emails in Gmail
Jayson is a long-time columnist for Forbes, Entrepreneur, BusinessInsider, Inc.com, and various other major media publications, where he has authored over 1,000 articles since 2012, covering technology, marketing, and entrepreneurship. He keynoted the 2013 MarketingProfs University, and won the “Entrepreneur Blogger of the Year” award in 2015 from the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs. In 2010, he founded a marketing agency that appeared on the Inc. 5000 before selling it in January of 2019, and he is now the CEO of EmailAnalytics and OutreachBloom.
